


With War Drums Blazing

by Adel Mortescryche (Mortescryche)



Series: yoimafiaweek prompt fills [6]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Absent Characters, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, BAMF Katsuki Yuuri, Blood and Violence, Codependency, Confident Katsuki Yuuri, Confused Victor Nikiforov, Day Six, Gallows Humor, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Minor role reversal, No Gore, Non-Graphic Violence, Okay I confess I'm at a loss for tags here, POV Victor Nikiforov, Pre-Slash, Salty Victor Nikiforov, Victor is a freelance hitman, Violence, Yuuri is Death Incarnate, prompt: blood, yoimafiaweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-31 00:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12120759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortescryche/pseuds/Adel%20Mortescryche
Summary: He’d been close to unconsciousness when he’d seen the feet encased in expensive leather heading his way, their steps whisper soft against the grass. Too weak to even push himself upright and, so, flat on his back when the man stopped somewhere in the vicinity of his head, leaning down to peer at him curiously.(or: There are some things that are inexplicable, even in the career of a freelance hitman. Victor should know. He's had Death dogging his heels for years, now, making small talk and keeping him company, and he still isn't surewhy.)(Death also has a name. It's Yuuri. This makes even less sense to him than the former.)





	With War Drums Blazing

**Author's Note:**

> If you didn't catch the tags, the premise for this day's prompt fill is Victor being a freelance hitman, while Yuuri is Death Incarnate, dogging his heels. For reasons known only to him. *laughs wryly* If the title caught your attention, yes, it _is_ drawing from A Perfect Circle's _Counting Bodies Like Sheep_. 
> 
> Minor role reversal because Victor's in his late teens/early twenties in the narrative. And Yuuri is, quite frankly, older than time. 
> 
> Amusingly enough, this fic doesn't have nearly as much graphic violence a the setting could have fit in, despite the origins of its title. Even so, consider stopping by the trigger warnings to be on the safe side.

“Another one for me, then?”

Victor paused in the process of cleaning his blade, glancing up slowly.

Yuuri was back again.

This was the softer Yuuri, the one with an innocuous pair of blue framed spectacles balanced on the bridge of his nose. He was crouched on the top of the desk, staring down at the old man seated in the chair behind it. Well, the corpse seated in the chair behind it.

Victor can’t really say he was surprised. The kid who’d put the cash down to hire him had asked for the job to be messy, this time – to scare any naysayers into listening to him. And messy always seemed to be what was most likely to make Yuuri show up. Oh, he showed up no matter how few or many bodies were laid out, no matter what means Victor chose to employ to get his pay check. Hell, half the time he showed up on a slow evening just to hang out, because he claimed he was bored. Though those nights tended to be softer Yuuri nights, too. It was the others that-

When Yuuri pulled away the fingers covering his mouth and glanced around back at Victor again, he was smiling. Clearly pleased.

Victor pointedly ignored him, and slid his knife back into its sheath.

“Oh, is today one of those days, then?” Yuuri asked him, mild, seemingly teleporting to right beside him.

He remained wordless, busy squirreling the sheath away and making a quick round to confirm that he’d picked up everything he’d needed to.

“Hey.”

His investigation done, he headed back to the open window, getting a foot on the frame so he could hop out.

“Hey.”

The tone made him pause for a split second, though he didn’t turn around to acknowledge the apparition behind him. It made Yuuri sigh, exasperatedly enough that Victor could nearly imagine the vexed look on his face.

“Well, if you’re going to be that way…”

There was no change in the atmosphere, nothing to indicate that Yuuri had left, but he didn’t need to turn around to confirm that the room behind him was empty, now. It made the corners of his eyes pinch, discomfort churning in his gut.

He twisted around and scaled down the wall anyway. Victor didn’t have the luxury of time to waste – he had to be out before any of the old man’s guards caught wind of him.

*

If Victor had to pinpoint a specific moment in time where he’d first seen Yuuri, or recognized his presence at the least…. He’d have to say it was the Castiglione job.

He’d been relatively young, then. Still making a name for himself in the business in the bigger world, outside of his hometown. Half the reason he’d left Russia was he had no interest in being tied to any single pakhan or even to someone else’s avtoritet, He hadn’t wanted to be in anyone else’s debt, not even when it came to being recognized for his work. He’d been taken in as a child, had been trained to the business, and had seen his adopted family wiped out in drug war as a teen, when they were taken over by a larger group. He’d managed to escape, but he’d vowed that he wouldn’t allow himself to be caught in such a vulnerable position ever again.

One of his old pakhan’s associates, a lady by the name of Lilia, had temporarily gone into hiding after the end of their old group. And had tried to stay in touch with Victor, to make sure he wasn’t biting off more than he’d chewed at any point. Which was a good worry to have, really, as Victor had proven during the Castiglione job, but… Victor had apparently already had someone looking out for him by then.

Well. Something was probably more appropriate.

No two ways about it. It had been a big fucking mistake taking that job, and everyone had known it except for him. But Victor had been young, had wanted to make a name for himself, and what better way to make a name for himself than wiping out a Family that no one had wanted to cross?

He’d been a fool. He’d underestimated the people he was going against, because they’d been more indulgent than the people whose company he’d grown up in. More… extravagant. The boss of the rival Famiglia that had signed his cash check had wanted Victor to take out all the adults who could be named the next in heir to the Castiglione – wetwork of the worst kind. Which he’d been trained to do, yes, But that didn’t mean he had to enjoy it.

The night had seen him sneaking into the mansion to take out the first heir, and had ended in a bloody chase where he’d run out of ammo and had been forced to start relying on his the knives and dagger he carried on him for emergencies. It had been a massacre, on his part at least, being forced to rely on brute strength just to keep going because there was no way he was leaving the hell hole without actually completing what he’d set out to do. The only matter of pride he’d had left by the end of the night was that no child below the age of thirteen had died by his hand. Had been knocked out and tied up, yes, but other than that…

He’d dragged himself out through the entryway and had collapsed in the grass, spent. Covered in blood, most of which was not his own, his right leg dragging him down because of the bullet wound in his thigh. He was lucky he hadn’t gotten shot in the meat of his torso – those would have made him bleed out so much faster.

His vision had been phasing in and out, hazy at edges. Enough so that he’d wondered, exhausted, if that would be the end of it. Poor Victor Aleksandrovich Nikiforov, hellbent on throwing himself at the world because he felt like he had no other way to be remembered by anyone. So needy that he would do anything to have his name remembered, but too scared to stay near his old home, because he couldn’t stomach the thought that the new pakhan controlling Yakov’s old territories would try to control him too.

He’d been close to unconsciousness when he’d seen the feet encased in expensive leather heading his way, their steps whisper soft against the grass. Too weak to even push himself upright and, so, flat on his back when the man stopped somewhere in the vicinity of his head, leaning down to peer at him curiously.

Even with his vision fading, he’d been able to tell that there was something wrong. Everything had been so quiet, the air nearly still. And the dark haired man staring down at him, his suit a stunning black on black affair that Victor distantly mourned not being able to appreciate in its entirety, had quite distinctly not been Italian.

“My,” he’d heard, right before he’d given in to the dark, “this is a pretty little present you’ve set up for me, isn’t it Vitya.”

He’d woken the next day, against all expectations, to a dim morning and a room filled with the halflight of dawn still lingering, more grey and bruise-purple than anything else. And something inhuman clad in a comfy oversized hoodie and tights sitting on a chair beside his bed, knees drawn up to his chest. A pair of blue framed spectacles perched in front of blood red eyes, staring him down with a soft smile.

Ironic, really, that he had recognized the alien quality of the being only after it had switched out into something that didn’t look like a bespoke suit with a trail of zeros to its name.

*

“Y’know,” Yuuri mused thoughtfully, kicking his feet lightly against the cheap carpet of the room they were in for the night, “I think I liked it more when you were screaming about how I couldn’t be real. At least then you talked to me.”

Victor, curled up in the bed beside him and all but burrowing into his sheets, grunted irately. And shot him a dirty look when Yuuri nudged him with an elbow.

“I,” he ground out, “am trying to sleep.”

“But sleeping’s boring.” Yuuri retorted, expression serious. If it weren’t for the way his lower lip jutted out in a slight pout.

“Not for us mere mortals, it’s not. Haven’t I entertained you enough for one day? You’d looked like you were going to laugh when Don Santora’s guard dogs jumped out at me in the dark.”

“Well, you have to admit, the look on your face had been hilarious.”

Victor didn’t dignify that with a response, instead dragging a pillow over his head, expression twisting even more when all it earned him was delighted laughter, and a finger poking him in the side.

“Ah, Vicchan, you’re almost unbearably adorable sometimes,” Yuuri said, fond. The endearment sends a shudder of distaste through Victor, because it’s never stopped feeling like Yuuri is making fun of him when he is kind.

What’s worse is that Yuuri is always, _always_ kind. Whether it’s in any of the rooms he’s picked out to lay low in between jobs or when he’s out in the field, clinically taking out his targets. Especially so when Victor had no choice but to get down and dirty, because his work ethic meant that he never let an assignment he’d undertaken end in failure. He could be in one of his expensive suits with his hair slicked back and his glasses missing or he could be in the drabbest of underpaid grad student clothing with the frames back in place on the bridge of his nose – he always had a smile and a fond word for Victor. Always.

He’s never sure how he’s supposed to react to it. Not when the being has been dogging his footsteps ever since he’d been seventeen and foolish. Unchanging in a way nothing in Victor’s life was.

“You should probably try getting back to Россия sometime soon, your little kitten’s father’s beginning to lose patience with old Kolya.” He said, later in the night, when Victor’s all but asleep.

The words send a dart of fear through Victor, who immediately pushes himself up to his elbows, his long hair a mess around him, slipping down his naked shoulders when he stared at Yuuri in horror.

The being is unnervingly back in one of his suits, faint smile in place on his face. Victor is mildly revolted by just how good he looked, exactly the kind of person he wouldn’t have hesitated to fall into bed with if given a chance. But Yuuri was a being as old as Time, who didn’t seem to pay attention to much outside the ending of a life. He delighted in what Victor did, gently wiped away the blood clinging to Victor’s cheeks whenever any of his jobs went particularly sideways, pressed kisses to his forehead like a benediction whenever Victor felt himself sinking too low or too far.  

There had been more than one person who had hired Victor, staring at him in the aftermath, as though he was specter of death appearing at their doorsteps. The expression on their faces had made Victor want to laugh himself hoarse, because, really, who could blame them? Who could blame them, when-

Death casually helped him pack his bag, and peered over his shoulder when he put in the money to buy a ticket on the next flight out of New York, clicking his tongue when Victor attempted to go for economy.

“I know you don’t like those seats, Vitya. Really. And to think you were the one who used to complain about not having enough money to always go for first class.”

“Don’t call me that,” Victor muttered back, petulant, making a face when Yuuri calmly tugged the phone out of his hands, unerringly heading straight for the seat Victor would have picked in the first place, if he hadn’t been trying to ensure there wouldn’t be space for Yuuri to lounge about beside him.

Transaction made, Yuuri turned around to reach up and cup his cheek. The fondness in his eyes made Victor’s chest ache, and he couldn’t help but lean into the comforting touch. For all that Victor just wanted to grab him by the collar at times and demand why Yuuri insisted on sticking by him, on being kind, on taking care of him when, really, Victor didn’t deserve any of it… he was honestly too scared to ask.

His hands were stained in blood. They were stained in blood by choice. Victor was probably on multiple most wanted lists of some sort, by now, he’d been in the business for long enough that he knew, even if governments and organized crime units couldn’t find the evidence to catch you, it didn’t mean that they didn’t know who you were. Victor had thrown himself into the life with vengeance and coldblooded hate that oozed from within him, an open sore that he hadn’t been able to lance because when he’d gone after the man who’d killed his papa-  

The pakhan controlling Yakov’s territories had to stay off limits. At least until Yuri was old enough to fend for himself and his grandfather without the support of his birth father. Victor had grown up almost a bodyguard to the little boy Yakov had found performing at an ice show. Victor had gone with him and Lilia, still young and curious about the sport his papa had seemed to be so fond of. Enough so that he’d taken the time to convince Lilia to watch the show with him. Little Yuri Plisetsky had looked like an angel, out on the ice, and when Yakov had tracked down his family to see if he could fund them-

“Poor Vitya, running away from his home, from his friends, from everyone until little Yura is old enough.” Yuuri murmured in his ear, the hand on Victor’s face making it impossible to move away.

He wasn’t even sure he wanted to, anyway. He grumbled, and fought, and said nasty things, and still Yuuri stayed. He got his hands dirty, came away from some jobs in blood stained clothes and from the really bad ones with crimson clinging to his skin and his hair, looking more like a monster than a man, and _still Yuuri stayed_.  

“We need to leave,” he said out loud, ignoring the way Yuuri’s eyes glinted with gentle laughter, when the being pulled back. And Victor ducked his head forward to accept the kiss pressed to it without any real complaint.

He had no idea why Yuuri had chosen to dog his footsteps. Or why he was always so fond of him. For a being that delighted in bloodshed and slaughter and treated every murder at Victor’s hands like an unexpected gift, he seemed strangely normal, when he wasn’t standing at Victor’s side and staring down at corpses with a smile on his face. There was no guarantee that Victor hadn’t gone a little crazy at some point, always keeping his own counsel after most of those he trusted had died. Yuuri might very well have been an illusion – but Victor doubted it. Even in the worst of his fever dreams, he doubted he could have dreamt up someone as beautiful or as ruthless as his Yuuri, Death incarnate.

Maybe it was only fitting. He’d sworn off of human companionship in his quest to reach the pinnacle of his craft, only to receive someone, something, that was capable of standing far above that pinnacle to stay by his side.

Pulling the door to the room shut, Victor made his way down the corridor and the stairs, Yuuri silently following behind him, that ever present smile still drifting across his lips. He had a young ice fairy of a boy to kidnap and care for, and a traitorous piece of shit playing at being a pakhan and a father to take out.  

Best not waste any more time. Death waited for no one, not even him.

**Author's Note:**

>  **TRIGGERS:** Minor character death and Casual violence are the main ones here. Victor's attitude towards his career means he pursues perfection and simultaneously views himself harshly for the number of deaths he's been the cause of over the years. Yuuri is very blasé about death as a resulting of _being_ Death. 
> 
> ***
> 
>  **AN:** Okay. To repeat what I told readers and anyone following the event week on Tumblr - this was probably a bit too ambitious for a single day's prompt fill, especially since I didn't get the time to write as much as I really wanted to for it. I do have ideas on how to bulk it up to be a proper standalone fic, but as I've been grumbling recently, I don't have the time to take on another project immediately. That said, this is _definitely_ high on my 'inspiration for a longer fic!' list.
> 
>  **Kudos and comments are very welcome!** Did anyone find this fill's plot to be interesting? I'd actually like to know because I loved the idea and really regretted not being able to write more for it immediately. What do you think about Victor and Yuuri's altered dynamic, here? 
> 
> I'm now on Tumblr, [@adelmortescryche](https://adelmortescryche.tumblr.com/). Feel free to drop by and say hi, and flail at me about YOI, KHR or any other fandom that catches your fancy. I don't bite. *grins*


End file.
